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PAGE 4A - THE COMMERCE (GA) NEWS. WEDNESDAY. TANUARY 28. 2009
mion
Editorial Views
Big Government
Shows Its Weak Side
Politicians and citizens alike bemoan the
idea of "big government," but on the national
and state levels no one actually in office has
much of a track record about downsizing gov
ernment. It is the natural order of things for
government to grow as there is never a short
age of new ideas for ways that government
can "improve" lives by spending taxpayers'
money.
Just as nature has a way of controlling over
population of any species, so does economics
occasionally intervene in the growth of state
and local government. Georgia faces a rev
enue shortfall of about $2.5 billion that may
do what neither Democrats nor Republicans
have had the courage to do — reduce the size
of the government.
(Alas, since the federal government owns
the presses that print U.S. currency, its growth
is immune to even a Depression-size down
turn).
Whereas it is easy to find ways to spend
"excess revenue" during boom times, trim
ming Georgia's expenses by $2.5 billion (or
more) to balance the budget is another matter.
It cannot be done without cutting services
and hurting constituents.
As the General Assembly is forced by the
state constitution to balance the budget, steep
funding cuts in programs and expenditures
will occur, and the process of deciding where
to cut will be bloody. Already, legislators, lob
byists, advocacy groups and ordinary citizens
are lining up to explain why funds should not
be slashed from their favored programs. From
health care to education, from transportation
to economic development, the contest is to
see which agencies best protect their funding
from the budget ax. There will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth — and predictions of
dire consequences — as the General Assembly
finalizes a downsized budget.
The situation is similar in local govern
ments, where due to depressed sales, building
permit fees and other income derived from
the housing industry have plummeted, but
payroll, maintenance and operating costs and
debt service are as high, if not higher than in
past years, but citizens' ability to pay those
taxes and fees is diminished.
Government has grown because citizens
demanded more services. They want expand
ed water and sewer facilities, better fire pro
tection, improved recreation facilities, animal
control, public transportation, road improve
ments and infrastructure for economic devel
opment. The public has shown a remarkable
capacity for from one side of the mouth
decrying the lack of amenities and from the
other the rate of taxation, but as long as the
economy boomed, most people were pla
cated.
A recession brings a new perspective. It
forces us to contemplate what government
functions may be absolutely necessary, as
opposed to those that promote a higher qual
ity of life. For families in financial distress,
quality of life now means the ability to buy
groceries, make the mortgage payments and
afford health insurance. What was necessary
12 months ago may be optional today.
If the recession restores governmental disci
pline, it will be a silver lining on a dark cloud.
Even now, that may be wishful thinking.
Governments don't worry about being laid
off. Maybe that's the problem.
Editorials, unless otherwise noted, are written
by Mark Beardsley. He can be reached at mark@
mainstreetnews. com
The Commerce News
ESTABLISHED IN 1875
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1672 South Broad Street
Commerce, Georgia 30529
MIKE BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher
SCOTT BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher
MARK BEARDSLEY..Editor/General Manager
JUSTIN POOLE Sports Editor
TERESA MARSHALL Office Manager
MERRILL BAGWELL Cartoonist
THE COMMERCE NEWS is the legal organ
of the city of Commerce and is published
every Wednesday by MainStreet Newspapers
Inc. Periodical postage paid at Jefferson, Georgia
30549.
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COMMERCE NEWS, P.O. Box 908, Jefferson. GA,
30549.
Criticism doesn't bother me as long as it's
Outgoing and not incoming.
Please Pass The Gall
I've been at it again:
trying to do my own
taxes. It's a project
filled with obstacles,
and by that I mean
everything from pot
holes to detours to
boulders — whatever
the IRS could think
of to throw into the
path of the hapless
taxpayer.
So I guess I love the challenge. I
can't think of any other reason why it
should fill me with pleasure to sit for
hours at the kitchen table, reading and
re-reading instructions that say, "Skip
lines 1 through 3, enter on line 4 the
amount from line 38, minus the total
of any amount from Form 8914, line
2, and, if you are claiming the stan
dard deduction, any amount from line
6. Then go to line 5." And no, I didn't
make that up. It's from the instruction
book for Form 1040 — yet another
reminder of what a funny country we
live in (and love).
Last Sunday, sidelined with a sore
throat, I sat and watched all of the
Sunday-morning political shows,
beginning with "Meet the Press."
Much of the discussion was about the
proposed "stimulus package," and
House minority leader John Boehner,
who is compellingly good-looking and
impossible to ignore, maintained at
length and in the gravest tones that
his liberal Democrat colleagues didn't
know anything about how to fix the
economy.
Later in the day, speaking on
the phone with my brother, I said,
"Setting aside the fact that I thought
our representatives were going to
quit labeling each other, hasn't
Congressman Boehner been around
for a while? Weren't his party's
policies the very ones that sent our
economy into crash mode? How can
he sit there and claim that he alone
A Few
Facts t A
Lot Of
Gossip 2
BY SUSAN HARPER
knows what to do?
How does he have
the, um, the — "
My brother laughed.
"Don't you remember
/ l Steve Allen and his
H unmitigated gall?" he
said. "He kept a jar of
it at his desk, and on
occasions like this,
he'd say, 'What unmit
igated gall!' and throw
some of it at the wall."
"Wow! No. Really?" I said. "Was it
brown? Or green? Sort of sludge-y
looking?" But of course, those were
the days of black-and-white TV. It was
just some dark-looking stuff in a jar.
But how perfect, I thought.
That evening, watching "60
Minutes" and seeing, up close and
in color, how the Israelis are treating
their Palestinian neighbors, harassing
them with multiple checkpoints, deny
ing them the ability to go to work,
throwing them out of their apartments
(having already thrown them off of
their land), and, in every way they can
think of, trying to make a two-state
solution impossible, I was ready to
reach for the gall jar myself. I have a
Palestinian friend — Christian, as it
happens — whose family lost every
thing and came to America to start
over, and it has taken her a long time
to recover from the fear, the sorrow,
and the loss. She still startles if a door
slams, because in her youth those loud
sounds were guns going off outside
her family's home.
Can we ever finally give up all of
that and settle down? My favorite
bumper sticker says, "When the power
of love is greater than the love of
power, there will be peace." Then we
can all sit around quietly and happily,
working on our taxes.
Susan Harper is director of the
Commerce Public Library. She lives in
Commerce.
Of Love, Valentine's Day
Viewpoints
In
Rotation
With Valentine's Day
rapidly approaching,
as we are reminded by
many store displays,
my thoughts have
drifted to famous love
affairs in history and
literature, and the
impact they have had
on our culture.
At a luncheon not
long ago, I was seated
with a charming couple
from the United Kingdom so, of
course, the conversation came around
to the royal family and latest gaff from
Prince Harry. The UK couple dropped
bits of royal gossip that we don't
always hear in our country. They gos
siped about Fergie, Camilla, Charles
and Diana, and their views on the
great triangle of Charles and Diana's
marriage (sure to go down as one of
the tragic love affairs in history), when
it occurred to me that we must credit
Mrs. Wallace Simpson for any inter
est in the lives of Charles, Diana and
Camilla.
I was so bold as to sing some lyrics
from an old Harry Belafonte hit, "It
was love, love, love alone/That made
King Edward give up his throne ..."
A
BY CLAIRE GAUS
They, being much
younger than I, and
in a social class that
deems them unlikely
to have sat around
listening to Caribbean
folk music, had never
heard the song.
When I explained
the song was about
the Duke and Duchess
of Windsor, our con
versation rocketed to
that subject. If the weak, playboy
King Edward VIII had not fallen into
the clutches of ambitious, married
American Mrs. Simpson when he was
still the Duke of Windsor and heir to
the throne, he would never have been
forced to make his abdication speech
"to be with the woman I love," his
younger brother would never have
become King George VI, his daugh
ter would never become Elizabeth II,
Charles would never have become heir
to the throne, never married Diana,
never conceived William and Harry,
and the rest of the world would have
much less about which to gossip. Tell
me those love affairs did not impact
Please Turn to Page 5A
According
To Mark
BY MARK BEARDSLEY
Layoffs Are
Unpleasant Side
Of Business
Online readers posted a flurry
of comments on the story about
BJC Medical Center laying off
45 people last week. Most of
them were hostile. Welcome to
the first quarter of 2009.
Local major industries
have laid off personnel too.
Management arrived suddenly
at several Tanger stores and
announced closings. Georgia's
jobless rate of 8.1 percent is
above the national average,
and it's generally accepted that
things will get worse before it
gets better.
I'm not defending the man
ner by which BJC conducted its
layoff, but I suspect there is no
way it could have done it with
out causing as many hurt feel
ings and so much anger.
A lot of Monday morning
quarterbacks out there know
who was to blame. It was man
agement's fault.
Maybe. I'd have liked to have
seen more emphasis put on
payment for emergency room
services long ago, for example.
Maybe BJC should have begun
layoffs sooner, in which case its
bottom line would be less red
today. Certainly better com
munications with employees
was warranted, and even in bad
times, employers should treat
workers with dignity, but at the
end of the day, 45 people would
still be without jobs.
In good times, BJC is bur
dened with too much uncom
pensated care. The local patient
mix loads BJC Hospital with
bad debt, charity care and state
and federal reimbursements that
often do not cover costs. Now,
with the economy worsening,
the percentage of uncompen
sated care is to BJC Medical
Center what a torpedo is to a
tanker. The situation is the same
in hospitals all over America; it
is one reason we keep hearing
about health care reform.
A business whose costs run
higher than its income will
fail, whether it's a public entity
like BJC or a private company.
We see the private sector shed
ding jobs, so we shouldn't be
shocked when BJC does the
same. City and county govern
ments have taxes to keep them
afloat, BJC gets no operating
cash from the taxpayers.
None of that rationalization
helps those laid off. While lay
offs may shed some over-paid
or under-performing people,
they also take jobs, benefits and
livelihoods from hard-working,
loyal and competent employees.
The loss of a job can destroy
personal security, threaten mar
riages and damage self-esteem; it
is devastating. Handled well or
poorly, a layoff is the most dif
ficult part of management.
Management has a fiduciary
responsibility to the owners of
the business — in this case, to
the taxpayers. The survival of
the organization always takes
precedent over the welfare of
the individual. That's the dirty
underside of business that you
don't see during good times.
These are not good times.
Mark Beardsley is editor of The
Commerce News. He can be reached
at mark@mainstreetnews.com